Various ramblings from someone that is usually making something. It might be sewing, knitting, crocheting, card making, quilting, beading, or whatever catches my interest.

August 30, 2007

When the lights goes out...again

Argh! The power went out again Tuesday night. It didn't come back until Wednesday afternoon. Whenever the power goes out, I call the automated number for the power company. Why? Because sometimes they just don't know that our power is out waaay out here and it comes on soon after I call. That didn't happen last week or yesterday. When I call, I usually get the "press this number" type recording. Yesterday, I found out that they have a new fancy voice automated system. I really don't like those. This one kept telling me that it couldn't hear me. I felt so odd shouting into the telephone. POWER OUTAGE. The part that nearly drove me batty was that after you report a power outage, it asks if you want tips on coping with a power outage. NO. Then it asks if you're worried about waking up late and do you want a wake up call. Um, NO. I just want to hang up. I did hang up on it and it called me back. I had to go through those questions before I was allowed to hang up. Fun...yeah right.

Instead of trying to knit by candle light, I wound yarn instead. I set up the swift and wound away. By the time the power came back on, I had wound all of the sock yarn that wasn't wound yet. That was around 10 skeins of sock yarn. I like having them wound and ready to go. When I'm ready to start a new project, I like to look into my yarn box and pick which colors I want to do next. Sometimes, but rarely, I pick out a pattern first.

Yesterday afternoon, I picked out the pattern. I bought Cat Bordhi'sNew Pathways for Sock Knitters. Now this isn't a straight forward pattern book. It's encouraged to you should read it first and knit the baby socks. I didn't do that. I flipped through the book a few times looking at all of the great sock pictures. I immediately liked the Coriolis Spiral sock, that so many have pointed out on blogs. But there is no direct pattern. I have to go through and find numbers A-J before I can knit the sock. I did my homework and I'm off and knitting. I almost have the foot section done on this sock. We'll see how if it fits after the heel is done. Or if I fall on my head for not reading or knitting the baby sock. ;-)

I have to mention the sock yarn that I got in the mail on Tuesday. It's Fly*Dyed Lace wing(fingering weight) and Monarch(sport weight). I bought it from Little Knits. I think that I'm going to love this yarn. The colors are great. The base yarn is very similar to other sock yarns that I like. On the sock that I'm knitting now in the Elfen color, it made tiny little stripes around the sock. It's starting to pool near the heel, but it still looks good. One of the great things about this yarn is that it's a bargain. The fingering weight comes in 125 gm skeins and that's somewhere around 540 yds for under $20. I could probably make two pairs of socks out of this skein.

Those stitch markers up there were made by me. E had some glow in the dark letter beads, so I can see them during the next power outage. The wire wraps aren't very nice, but it works and it doesn't snag my yarn. That's what matters when I want to knit the socks now. Back to knitting...

I was just given Cat's new book as a gift and the Coriolis sock is the one I immediately fixated on too. :) I'm going to knit a few baby socks first though. :) And maybe label a few stitch markers with some letters...